Former U.S. Sen. Hank Brown – a senior statesman of Colorado politics – this morning called the amount of money fueling today’s campaigns “astronomical” and “truly a national scandal.”

“(It’s) not that political leaders are that much more charming these days than they used to be,” said Brown, a Republican and a Colorado co-chair for the Mitt Romney campaign who represented the state in Washington, D.C., for 15 years.

Tickets for the event start at $250 per person and go as high as $40,000 per couple, for a meet-and-greet and photo with the president in addition to the reception. Last week, Ann Romney spoke at a $500 per-person breakfast reception at Cherry Hills Country Club. Tickets to that event topped out at $2,500 per couple.
Brown, who criticized Obama during the call for not tackling the rising cost of entitlement programs, said part of the problem is that government has gotten so big. Today, the federal government makes up 24 percent of the GDP. (This Business Insider article has a chart showing how this number has changed in recent decades).

“The explosion in campaign donations is a tragedy, because it reflects the fact people feel they have to donate to survive economically,” Brown said. “That’s really not what we want America to be all about.”

Matt Inzeo, spokesman for the Colorado Democratic Party, criticized Brown for ignoring “the elephant in the room” – the 2010 U.S. Supreme Court Citizens United ruling, which eased campaign finance laws, allowing the explosion of funding from super PACs.

“We used to have a system where it was very clear who was contributing, what their affiliations were and how much they contributed,” Inzeo said. “Thanks to the (Chief Justice John) Roberts court, we now live in a world where just the basic tenets of that bargain have fallen apart.”

What I think is scandalous is the fact that the majority of the voters only vote for the best and most frequent soundbites and TV adds, and therefore require our politicians to find and steal money from wherever they can get it to put those soundbites on TV.
Don’t blame the politicians for your own stupidity! YOU created this monster.

Anonymous

RootStrikers.org

Upside down world.

If the economy were not rigged, these people would not have
so much money to throw around.

Inflation steals from the low end and gives to the top end.

Krugman is a reverse Robin Hood.

Anonymous

The 1% have a lot of money to waste on Republicans and Democrats.

Upside down world.

Yup. Money we should have recognized in the form of
DEFLATION! AKA lower prices.

Institutionalized inflation is screwing the working man.

Davidjohnson813

Inflation would not be an issue if our government did not borrow so heavily from foreign countries. The last 4 years have been catastrophic for our economy and put the next few generations deeply in debt.

So now that Brown’s not running for office, he can criticize the money spent on political campaigns.

Anonymous

Any common citizen trying to raise money on the streets of Denver and providing a relationahip for cash would be arrested for prostitution, unless it is a Denver cop. Politics continue to meet the guidelines the Supreme Court described as pornography said, “I can’t tell you what it is but i know it when I see it”. Brown is correct, but he too participated and willingly “took-da-cash”.
Like Wall Street, we need regulations but, no one wants to leave their legislative finger-prints as evidence they were involved.

Davidjohnson813

Hank Brown lives in a glass house and should not be casting stones.

Anonymous

This is why we should have campaign donation/campaign spending caps. We probably shouldn’t allow tv ads either, especially negative ones.

Joey Bunch has been a reporter for 28 years, including the last 12 at The Denver Post. For various newspapers he has covered the environment, water issues, politics, civil rights, sports and the casino industry.